Alistair Says It Is About People. But You Will Forget

23. Jul, 2008 2 Comments

Software Projects are about humans… They’ve always been. During my study, I got inspired by Barry Boehm’s Theory W, everything Fred Brooks has written, Tom DeMaro and Tom Lister, and Alistair Cockburn (for me the only person that has written intensively about the link between choice of project approach and human related issues!)

Alistair has written a great article in this months issue of CrossTalk: Good Old Advice.

“With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the best-known writers in the software field have been advocating the same four recommendations written in the agile manifesto for decades … The older writers were ignored for decades while people searched for mechanical replacements for the key elements in developing software: thinking and communicating. But that’s a separate story. It Is About People.”

Yes everyone, IT IS ALL ABOUT PEOPLE.
It has always been.
It will always be.

We know it for decades.
Somehow, we just forget.

(Hat tip to Ray for pointing me to this article)

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2 Responses to “Alistair Says It Is About People. But You Will Forget”

  1. hobo64 05. Aug, 2008 at 10:09 pm

    If you like Barry, Fred, Tom & Tom, Fred, Alistair etc (who else?), why do not re-read Bob Charette’s articles about SW project risks… Bob’s collection of project failures is (probably) absolutely fanstastic, although I am not that rich to ask him for advice.

    It is ALWAYS about people… But how many different angles it has!

  2. Bas 06. Aug, 2008 at 3:53 pm

    Thank you for the tip. Will check him out. Amount of angles? Last time I counted, I stopped at 347…. :)